"If It Ain’t Organic, I Ain’t Messing With It"

The 46-year-old Hall of Famer-to-be is taking on 28-year-old Jean Pascal on Jean’s home turf in Montreal in a highly anticipated rematch. The first fight ended in a draw in what many people felt was a shortchanging of Hopkins.

Saturday’s bout will be available on HBO (Pay-Per-View in Canada), and the world will be watching to see if Hopkins can break George Foreman’s record and become the oldest boxer to ever win a title.

We caught up with Hopkins to find out what it takes for a man in his mid-40s to stay in such prime shape and still be a problem in the ring for someone 18 years his junior.

Bernard Hopkins on his drive to continue winning

You’re a Hall of Fame boxer, a former two-division World Champion. Where does that fire come from that says, "I need to keep on fighting"?

Bernard Hopkins (BH): The haters. The doubters. The wannabe dictators of what a person can and cannot do. Plain and simple. When I hear what I ain’t supposed to do, it motivates me.

It’s like when we hear about someone that’s told they only have six months to live, and we find out that they are alive after two years.

I refuse to lay down because of the technology of what life is supposed to be at a certain age. The fire comes from continuing to prove that I can fight at a high level and that I can make history.

You’ve defied the odds so many times — be it defending your middleweight title 20 times or even when a teacher once told you that you wouldn’t live until 18. What does it mean to you to defy the odds one more time to eclipse George Foreman’s record to become the oldest fighter to ever win a title?

BH: How often does any athlete get a chance to make history more than four or five times in their career? And I get a chance to not only shatter the record of oldest champion in boxing but — I was corrected today — the oldest athlete to win a major title in any sport. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

You’ve accomplished a lot in your career. Why is this latest accolade of winning at the age of 46 so important?

BH: It’s beyond words, even though we find something to say about the accomplishment once it happens. It’s something that I’m saying to people that I know isn’t going to be appreciated now as it will be in 10, 15, 20 years from now.

You know, I like basketball and I like football, but I don’t see no 46-year-olds who are starting the first five on any NBA basketball team or football or hockey. Name me a 40-year-old who’s starting on any NBA team. Name me a 37- or 38-year-old who is starting and not being used as a role player.

We see so many people do great things, but to sustain it for a really long, long, long time, I guess that’s when people start realizing the great accomplishment. Name me another 46-year-old athlete that’s still in their sport that’s not embarrassing themselves.

That’s something to say.

What do you have to do now that you didn’t do before in your training when you were younger?

BH: Coordination. You’ve got to go ahead and work on your reflexes, which means I’ll take a tennis ball or a jack ball, and I’ll throw it at the wall and let it fly all the way around. And you catch that ball within 30 seconds, then you make your mark and try to beat it. Then you catch it within 10 seconds and try to beat it. And you get it within five seconds, which gets kind of crazy, but the challenge is what you want because it helps the reflexes.

When you get older, the first thing that starts to go is reflexes, and reflexes are important for any person, especially an athlete — to react to something in a time when something is going on and you can’t be a second or two behind. That’s very important. Hand-eye coordination and reflexes is something I work on more than anything. Endurance, I have no problem. Training, getting up, no problem. Eating, like I’ve been eating for the last 20 years — you know, I’m a Whole Foods guy — no problem. Being in bed at the right time and waking up at the right time, no problem.